American Euchre

The cat eye is 100 lumens at $50 street price.

The dinette's are $200+ for approx. 200 lumens

The cygo150 and niterider150's are $50 or less street price. They are without question the best values in the tail light market.

The dinette's don't offer a clearcut advantage aside from their 8 vs. 3 or 4 mounts for niterider and cygo.

kbarch

No doubt there will always be something brighter than another, but careful you don't get anything too bright. Even if you're not concerned with annoying following riders, they become downright hazardous if they're blinding. People need to see everything, not just your tail light, and in that respect, retroreflective features on your gear are much more effective.

smarkinson

Would running two or even three rear lights be an option for optimising visibility?

I wouldn't trust the lumens numbers for any Cree light. I bought a Cree torch from eBay which claims anywhere between 2000lm and 5000lm depending on who is selling it. It's probably as bright as my Cateye 300 headlight when the Cateye is set to its second brightest setting which Cateye says is 150lm.

It's not a bad torch but I take the claims about the lumens output with a grain of salt.

kbarch

I think one would indeed be better off with an additional light than with a single light that's twice as bright; the back of ones helmet is a great place for one.

Unless we're talking about using them in daylight, the brightness of tail lights isn't so important, because it doesn't take much for red lights to be quite visible, and it's not like they need to illuminate the road or anything like your headlights. People just need to see that there's something there, and the blinking (or movement of your head) is more effective at calling attention to your presence than brightness.

VegasTriker

It is not easy to find information on the CREE website. There are wildly "optimistic" claims made by sellers on eBay concerning their LED flashlights. Many of the cheaper flashlights use the Q5 LED which is part of the XP-E family of CREE LEDs. You can find a reference to it in the 3rd table for the link provided above. Note that the output listed there is for 350 mA but many flashlights run much higher currents because the aluminum case acts as a heat sink so you can run a higher current for a brighter output without frying the LED. The Q5 LEDs are much less bright than the XML LEDS. If you compare the brightest white Q5 output at 350 mA with that for the brightest red LED in the same family, the lumen output for red is about 80% of that for white. That's consistent with the claim of 1000 lumens for a white XML-T6 flashlight and the 800 lumens for a red one. CREE lists the output for a white XML-T6 LED as 1070 lumens at 1000 mA.


The flashlight I linked to does not use the multicolor XML Color LED which has 4 emitters of different colors in a single chip. This one only emits red. I've compared it visually to a 1000 lumen white flashlight and it is nearly as bright. Sometime in the near future I will dig out my old GE lightmeter which measures candlepower and do a real comparison on both. Much more scientific than simply comparing them visually.

surgeonstone

Exactly, even helmet if so desired.

American Euchre

Dinotte taillights do not include a helmet mount.

KonaRider125

I've been happy with my Lezyne 100 lumen light strip, mounts nicely on the seat stay, and is more than bright enough to get attention from motorists in daylight.

Lezyne Strip Drive Pro 100 Rear LED Light

American Euchre

The cygo150 hsp includes a taillight mount, $40 to $50 street price.

Sy Reene

That looks good.. it has the right shape it seems for running down a seatstay anyway. Curious about the difference in battery life for 2 of the listed flash modes though. There's a 100 lumen Daylight flash mode where battery is supposedly good for 5 hours, while the 50 lumen Flash1 mode is only good for 3 hours.

For this one.. certainly bright enough rating anyway. Any thoughts though on whether single light with higher output is more or less effective than (eg. the Lezyne) a 5 light array with somewhat lower overall lumen output? Now as a positive.. again on the topic of flash mode, this unit is supposedly good for 75 hours in flash mode (though I didn't see a lumen output at this setting listed (I was on REI's site) ??

znomit

The big difference is the XML can run at 3A whereas the red LEDs (XP-G or the newer XP-E) are 1A max, so theres about a factor of three in that alone.

KonaRider125

I only use mine on the 100 lumen mode, and its lasted through my longest ride since I've had it(about 5 hours). I make sure to recharge before every ride. The price/weight/performance ratio of Lezyne lightstrip pro is very good. Worth the $50.

69chevy

I understand you are asking for lumens, but I agree that the Bontrager Flare R is the brightest bike light I have ever seen.

DXchulo

+1 on that. I have one of those cheap, no-name lights from Amazon. It's a great light for the money, but they exaggerate it so much. It's not as bright as they say and battery life isn't very good. It's a great backup, though, which is exactly what I bought it for.

Carbonfiberboy 

I've run my integral battery DiNotte on flash for 15 hours. Don't know how long it would have lasted.